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kiwikathleen 's review for:
The Wednesday Wars
by Gary D. Schmidt
I don't remember how this got onto my to-read list, but I'm very glad it did. I'm also very pleased that I decided to listen to it on Audio. If reading I might have skimmed some of the descriptive passages, but listening to it meant that I got every word - and the descriptions are beautifully done, from the snow falling or the beauty of spring, to the expressions on people's faces, to moments of intense drama.
The story is about a boy in the 7th Grade (I guess that would make him around 12) and is set over the year 1967/68. Those of us who remember, or who have learnt some history, know that was the time of the Vietnam War, also when Martin Luther King Jr was assassinated, and when Bobby Kennedy was killed. The Beatles were a huge influence, and Flower Power was widespread among the youth. But for a boy not yet in his teens, it was still school life that consumed him. This is the opening sentence:
It would be interesting to hear what a young reader makes of Mrs Baker. We adults know that a 12-year-old's comprehension of adults is minimal and so we can smile at Holling's perceptions. We can smile at his embarrassment when he finds himself having to perform in Shakespeare wearing yellow tights (etc.), and laugh at his misadventures with the pet rats in the classroom, knowing all along that the way he views all these things will alter as he matures. And by the end of the story he has matured a lot, mostly due to Mrs Baker and Shakespeare.
The story is about a boy in the 7th Grade (I guess that would make him around 12) and is set over the year 1967/68. Those of us who remember, or who have learnt some history, know that was the time of the Vietnam War, also when Martin Luther King Jr was assassinated, and when Bobby Kennedy was killed. The Beatles were a huge influence, and Flower Power was widespread among the youth. But for a boy not yet in his teens, it was still school life that consumed him. This is the opening sentence:
Of all the kids in the Seventh Grade at Camillo Junior High, there was one that Mrs Baker hated with heat whiter than the sun - me!Poor Holling! And he couldn't complain about her to anyone because she was a member of an important family and Holling's father was an architect pitching ideas to others in that family, and so Holling was commanded to be the perfect student and do everything Mrs Baker said without question.
It would be interesting to hear what a young reader makes of Mrs Baker. We adults know that a 12-year-old's comprehension of adults is minimal and so we can smile at Holling's perceptions. We can smile at his embarrassment when he finds himself having to perform in Shakespeare wearing yellow tights (etc.), and laugh at his misadventures with the pet rats in the classroom, knowing all along that the way he views all these things will alter as he matures. And by the end of the story he has matured a lot, mostly due to Mrs Baker and Shakespeare.